Intricate
by luumos
Summary: They were magnetic, their lives intricately woven together by the hands of fate. Redemption, hope, the promise of a new start..


I actually love Clint/Natasha. They are perfect. This one-shot was born from a very late night.

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**Intricate**

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The first time it happened, Clint didn't know what to think. He'd never imagined kissing her before, and now he couldn't think about stopping. It was so below the surface for so long that now it has exploded out of them both. It was instinct, familiarity.

The second time it happened, Clint has surprised himself. He'd put the first night down to the fact that it was sexual tension, and once it had been resolved there was nothing left to think about on the matter. But he needed her again.

The third time it happened, Clint began to notice a pattern. It wasn't after every single mission. No, it was something reserved for particularly heavy nights, the kinds where lives were jeopardized and emotions got in the way of the job. Natasha would find her way to him, whether her was in the armoury or his quarters aboard the hellicarrier. She'd slip in, close the door silently behind her as she would on a mission, and then whirl him around into her embrace, their lips crashing together in need and surprise.

The first time, Clint hadn't know how to respond. He knew Natasha, after all, and not just as a colleague or a friend. He knew things about her; how she flinched at the sound of a drill, how she shivered whenever someone touched her wrist, how she hadn't been able to let go of her pain to open up to anyone… But when Natasha kissed him again, the hunger inside him was woken and he had to have her. Natasha knew herself well enough to, and she wanted it. She wanted _him_.

He wrapped his arms around her as she led him to his bed, slowly pulling down the zip to his vest. Clint followed her direction, pulling his vest off and tossing it aside in time to assist her in unzipping her cat-suit. Natasha ripped the top half of her suit back and attacked him with kisses again, moving along his cheek and jaw and, eventually, up to his hear.

'Fuck me, Barton,' she breathed against him as he unhooked her bra, and their bare chests pushed against each other. Clint dotted kisses along her jaw, and along her neck. She pulled his head back up to look her in the eye. Hands either side of his face, Natasha whispered: 'Make me forget.'

He did just that as they continued to strip away one another's clothes and lost themselves. Like ecstasy, they needed more and clung tight, Natasha's nails digging into to Clint's shoulders as she sat him down and straddled him. They resumed their kissing, lips reddening from the force of each one but neither of them stopping to care. Clint wrapped his arm around her back and pulled her around, dropping her on her back. He paused, just for a moment, and waited for her. She didn't give him a chance to ask, her hands going to his waist as he leaned down to kiss her again. Natasha moaned ever so quietly against his lips and he pushed down. She arched her back, wrapping her arms tight around his shoulders and catching his lips with her again. Her eyes opened and closed with her moans of pleasure. Clint kissed her neck and her collarbone, one after the other, and her nails dug into his shoulders once more. Their lips found one another again, and Natasha growled against his smirk.

It had been awkward after, passing each other in the halls, bumping into one another in the training wing and being assigned to work together, as they always were. Clint had wanted to go on as though nothing had changed, but he couldn't pretend forever. He couldn't look at her without flashing back to that night, and how she felt in his arms, how perfect she'd been. He suspected she felt the same way and, though Natasha was never one to walk away from a problem, Clint couldn't debate that she'd been avoiding him like a mistake she wanted to forget. He'd been about to corner her and demand an explanation when Fury had radioed them both, calling them to a mission.

It had gone as smoothly as ever, and both Clint and Natasha chose to ignore the heat between them and go on as they had before; as colleagues and professionals. It had been a relatively routine extraction job, just outside of Dubai. On the outskirts, they were almost completely alone. The package was on its way, and it was when Natasha received the transmission that it had been compromised that the bullets began to fly. The sky lit up with the firepower, white flashes came from every direction. Natasha and Clint sprang into action, covering one another's backs, shooting straight. It wasn't long until they were the only two left standing. The enemy fire had been uneducated; a masked group of rebels determined to cause a problem. Clint stepped out to retrieve the case they'd come for, when a young boy of only 8 or 9 picked up his fallen father's gun. Clint froze, his bow in hand. He hesitated. It was a child in front of him, ready to kill him, and yet he couldn't fire the arrow he had ready. The boy's hands moved clumsily along the gun, finding the trigger and shakily raising the weapon to aim at Clint. His finger about to squeeze, a shot rang through the night. The boy fell, and Clint looked back at Natasha, whose gun was raised and freshly fired.

That night was the second time it happened. Clint had been quiet on the ride back to the hellicarrier. His hand shook, a sure sign that he was unsteady in his own thoughts. He was an expert marksman; the best archer in the world. His hands never shook.

They delivered the package back to Fury and he sent them away to take the night off duty, to sleep it off. He'd heard a full report of what happened, and he knew neither of them were likely to be handling it well. Clint had been pale and unsteady, and Natasha was quiet.

They went side by side back to the residents quarters, their fingers occasionally brushing as their arms swung at their sides. Clint's room was one of the first along the corridor, and Natasha had wondered if he wanted to be alone. Her question was answered when he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her inside, the pair of them crashing against the wall amidst a passionate kiss. Their fingers fumbled with their clothes and Clint hoisted her up around his waist, not even bothering to move to his bed this time.

'You wanna forget,' Natasha murmured against his lips.

He put a hand on the back of her neck, his finger playing with a scar he knew she had there.

'I want you,' he said.

They woke up wrapped up in Clint's sheets the following morning, having slept soundly after the events of the previous night. Natasha chose to stay in his arms a little longer while he slept, tracing her fingers over his chest. She thought back to the last time she'd touched him there; the night he'd been sent to kill her. She had her right hand on his chest and her left hand held a gun to his forehead. He hadn't even flinched.

It had been so many years since that night, and while Natasha had suffered through her fair share of nightmares and shiver-inducing memories, Clint had battled his own demons. The one thing they had in common was each other, a constant since then.

Clint sighed in his sleep and his eyes began to open. Natasha kept her gaze on his face and when he finally roused himself from sleep she didn't turn away. She didn't smile or frown either. There was nothing that needed to be said, and yet so many things would have made sense in the silence. Finally, when they were getting dressed later on, Natasha with her back to him as Clint laced up his boots, Clint spoke:

'I needed you last night,' he said as he finished what he was doing.

Natasha didn't know what to think for a moment, but as she turned to him and saw the look on his face; the look of a man fighting battles way over his head, the battles that ate away at his soul every time he took a shot, Natasha saw herself. They were alike, with their orders and the code they followed. They were assassins, trained to kill and not to feel.

Yet every once in a while they needed to remind themselves they were still human.

Natasha sat down beside him on the bed. 'I killed a child yesterday, someone's son,' she paused. 'And, before that, the first time I came to you, you knew I'd just come back from Russia.' She looked up at him. He was nodding, his expression still sombre. Natasha clasped her hands in her lap and turned her eyes down.

'I needed you too.'

Clint straightened at her words, but he didn't make a big deal of it. He knew that for Natasha, for the both of them, any kind of vulnerability wasn't something they made a habit of. Things were different between them, of course; they always had been. Clint had given her hope when he saved her, and in return she'd given him redemption. But that didn't change the fact that they were assassins, the cold and remorseless side of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Clint put his hand on the bed between them, and Natasha put hers over it. They sat quietly for a moment, the silence full of if's and maybe's they were both thinking about.

'Natasha - '

'I don't want you to say anything about it,' she said, cutting him off.

He looked torn between knowing she was right; that it would ruin the escape they found with each other, where they could switch everything off and simply be. Torn between that and knowing that things had changed between them, and that this might be the only chance he had to say something. Once this moment of calm had passed, and the next storm had come, Clint didn't know if there'd be another night like the last two.

Natasha put his fears to rest.

'Clint,' she began. 'It's always been you and me. That's not gonna change.'

She stood up then, about to leave when their com links rang out and they were both summoned to the command deck. When they arrived, they found people rushing around and Fury standing alone. They approached him and waited for orders.

'The tesseract has been found,' said Fury, turning to face them. 'I want the two of you to take a team down there and bring it back. Understood?'

'Yes sir.' They said in unison.

Fury touched Clint's shoulder. 'Barton, you're going to be on surveillance once we have it secured.'

It was months later that they came together for the third time. After they had brought the tesseract to S.H.I.E.L.D, after Clint had been taken by Loki, after Natasha had spent her time tracking him down to save him the way he'd saved her. After their battle, and the battle on the ground, Clint and Natasha stole away to his quarters once more.

He held her against the wall, kissing her neck as she pulled his vest over her head again. They were both covered in wounds; it had only been a few hours since the dust of the battle had settled, and they'd gotten back to the hellicarrier. Natasha kissed Clint hard on the mouth as his hand weaved through her hair, pulling her closer to him. When they broke apart and found one another's gaze, Clint whispered:

'Why now?'

'Because we're alive,' Natasha replied, kissing him again. 'And we've been through hell and back together.'

Clint smirked against her kiss. 'Now seems as good a time as any.'

They were magnetic, their lives intricately woven together by the hands of fate. Redemption, hope, the promise of a new start.. The right words were never really in their repertoire, and they didn't have to be. The only thing either of them would ever need, they already had.

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Hope you enjoyed yo'selves.  
Ellie x


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